


Serving at the Archivist's Pleasure

by blessedharlot



Category: The Great Library Series - Rachel Caine
Genre: Anxiety, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, F/M, Married Dario and Khalila, Other, PIV Sex, Panic Attacks, Post-Series, Sex with Hijab, Sin Universe, Sword and Pen Spoilers, Vaginal Fingering
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-09-08
Updated: 2019-09-08
Packaged: 2020-11-02 01:02:22
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,103
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20568608
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/blessedharlot/pseuds/blessedharlot
Summary: As new Archivist, Khalila has a new head of security, carefully chosen by Niccolo Santi. Captain Vittorio Santi wastes no time helping Dario take care of Khalila.





	Serving at the Archivist's Pleasure

**Author's Note:**

> This is meant to be an alternate entry-point for Vittorio Santi, into the post-series world of fic.

Khalila knew her growing fear was irrational. 

She could determine its irrational nature from its persistence through all the suitable precautions taken by her new chief of security -- a man hand-picked by Nic. For their travel away from Alexandria, the safety measures were thorough and sound.

She could ascertain her fears were not any clever intuition to be heeded, after her new chief double and triple checked the perimeters around her and had her rooms searched.

She could also observe how quickly and disproportionately the fear set on, a speed and volume indicating it was a lower-brain response gone haywire. Combat tremors, it was now being called. A soldier’s lingering phantoms.

None of that eased the ice cold feeling in her gut, nor the terrible shivering she felt all over when she tried to sit still. _ This wouldn’t do, this wouldn’t do at all. Not for the Archivist of the Great Library. People were watching. People were always watching. _

She’d felt this way, on and off, for most of the day. Khalila was certain her staff, at least, knew how rattled she was, and she felt a little ashamed of it now. 

She got up and paced again, with what she hoped was a dignified stature.

Just then, her new security chief knocked and entered… and Dario swept in behind him.

“Querida!”

Khalila’s alarm rang even louder in her ears. She wasn’t expecting Dario.

“My love, what’s wrong, why are you here?” she demanded.

He dropped a small bag he carried and brought her into an embrace.

“Nothing’s wrong at all, madonna. I simply couldn’t be apart from you any longer.”

She closed her eyes and tried to settle into his embrace, his scent, his warmth. And Khalila felt rather than saw her captain clear the room of the other guards.

“Couldn’t bear it,” Dario continued, stroking her back. “So, I bothered a few very busy individuals, and used unnecessary resources to get myself translated here.”

Khalila let her mask drop, just a bit, to smile deeply and genuinely at his presence. But she did pull back to look him in the face.

“My new Captain Santi sent for you, didn’t he?” she asked.

Dario tried for an innocent face and failed. Santi piped up behind him.

“Please forgive me my grave presumption, Archivist. I only wished to make you more comfortable.”

It was terribly presumptive, and she should bristle at it... but even in her current, harried state, Khalila couldn't help liking her new captain and his care for her. Nic bringing his brother in to watch over Khalila had been one more attempt to assuage the guilt Nic felt at losing Scholar Murasaki on his watch. But regardless of blame, Khalila thought it might be one of Nic's best decisions. Vittorio Santi knew his business, was comfortingly deadly, and had been charming and kind and efficient from the instant Khalila had met him. He also had his brother’s eyes, though they softened so easily for a soldier.

He often took a hands-off, supervisory approach to her personal escort, deeply trusting the people he hand-picked for this assignment and coordinated as a unit. But he and Khalila still consulted daily on her security needs. And sometimes... he seemed to linger when her mood was foul. He'd once even played a game of chess with her, as they waited for transportation. He'd won the game.

“Your hands, madonna,” Dario said, looking down with a frown.

“What about th- oh.”

She’d scratched several of her burn scars open without even noticing. Red cracks crisscrossed with pale trails of blood where her close-cut nails had dragged too firmly.

Dario turned and before he could ask, Santi answered.

“Please allow me to find the Archivist some balm,” the captain said.

“Yes, thank you, Vittorio,” she replied, still hiding her bewilderment, though they were the only ones left in the room.

As soon as he left, Khalila reached for Dario’s cheek, her trembling getting worse, her heart beating too fast.

“Please hold me,” she whispered.

“My dearest,” Dario cooed, helping her to a couch. “Come sit down. Take your ease with me.”

Dario wrapped his muscular arms around her, and she never wanted him to let go. She thought she might die if he did. She couldn’t seem to feel his arms around her _ enough _.

“My love, you’re so overworked,” he purred. “You’re very tired, and we’ll take some time to get you righted again. Have you had your evening prayers?”

“Yes,” she nearly stammered. “I just had them a few moments ago-”

Khalila didn’t finish her sentence, but she looked his way. She knew Dario would understand. _ It’s usually so centering, prayer. It’s a place of calm. And yet my heart is about to break its way out of my chest. _

Dario did realize how it rattled her, that her beloved prayers didn’t help. He held her more tightly, and she felt just a little less like a bird trying to beat herself out of a cage.

They rocked, her head in the crook of his neck, and she enjoyed the smell of him. She found the hand with his wedding ring and she rubbed her finger on it. It soothed her.

Vittorio returned with a small jar and dropped to his knees on the floor in front of her. Khalila had a moment of panic at the thought of letting go of Dario, and then felt shame for it.

“Archivist,” he said softly. “May I call you by your first name for a moment?”

Khalila nodded in gratitude. The weight of her title threatened to spin her back into chaos just now.

“Khalila,” Vittorio said, with a velvety gentleness. He opened the jar of balm, sat it next to him and offered a hand. “If you’ll permit me another familiarity…”

Khalila nodded, and offered the hand with the worst cracks. He carefully examined her hand, frowning sympathetically. Then he set to work, while Dario didn’t have to move a muscle.

“Everything’s falling apart, Dario,” Khalila whispered. “All of it.”

“Shhhh, my love, it’s not as bad as all that.”

“It will be me who destroys the Library, after all this. After our friends’ sacrifices-”

Khalila couldn’t stop the tears.

“My love. No. You mustn’t listen to those demons.” Dario shifted only to reach his handkerchief. and was expertly catching her tears before they reached the part of her scarf wrapped around her neck. “Captain. Vittorio. Do you know of anything urgent to be done in the next hour?”

“There’s nothing, Scholar. Khalila has masterfully handled the day’s agenda thus far, and is not needed anywhere right now.”

“There we are, then. Vittorio knows what he’s about. What must be done now…” 

Dario took her face in his hands and looked deeply in her eyes. 

“What must be done right now,” he said, “is that Khalila gets cared for.”

She saw firm determination in Dario’s eyes, and Khalila felt the edges of her cold panic start to thaw. She focused with all her might on Dario - her husband, her beloved - and being in his arms and nowhere else. Dario who knew her so well. Dario who was her home. 

And wrapped around her sore, cracked hands were Vittorio’s ministrations. She’d known him such a short period of time, but he was as tender with her as any loved one she knew.

She settled into Dario’s arms, and looked at her hands. Vittorio had generously rubbed the medicated oils into her raw spots, and now he expertly moved around those to find the bellies of the slender muscles she used all day to -- no, she didn’t want to think about what she’d written all day. She wanted to feel Vittorio’s warm, generous hands taking care of hers, finding tension points and holding them firmly between his fingers until they melted.

He had Nic’s charm, but there was something else too... a gentleness he offered so easily.

She looked up at him, until he looked at her. His smile came easily, and quietly dazzled.

“Thank you, Vittorio,” she smiled. “That’s above and beyond your duty.”

Vittorio shook his head with a lovely, thoughtful frown. “I’m here to see you’re taken care of. In whatever way is needed.” 

He met her eyes again, briefly, and then looked closely at his work on her hands again. 

Khalila smiled, and felt a little tremor of a different sort at his tone. There was some small, soft invitation tucked into his words, that she wasn’t sure she’d find half so graceful or loving in someone else so unfamiliar to her.

She took another breath, and allowed herself to close her eyes as she leaned into Dario’s chest. She thought - just as she closed her eyes - that she might have seen Vittorio exchange a quick glance with Dario.

No, closing her eyes was a bad idea. 

“No,” she said, with no context. “I can’t sleep yet. There’s more to do before I can sleep.”. 

“Here,” Dario said. He stood, and as he did, he encouraged her to her feet.

She reached her full height, then looked down at Vittorio. His face was soft and open as he remained on his knees, still holding her hands.

Dario pulled her attention by taking her face in his hands, and then her back was turned to Vittorio… one hand still in his. Without her bidding, her other hand reached around her body to find him again.

With both of her hands behind her, in Vittorio’s caressing grip, Dario brought his lips to Khalila’s. Not the kind of kiss they’d ever shared in front of a stranger, this one was wet and lustful and warmed her down to her thighs. Dario’s tongue lingered in her mouth and she felt Dario’s rhythm and Vittorio’s altogether as one.

Dario slipped a hand under the front wrap of her hijab and kept kissing her as his hand found the places on her neck that made her ache with desire… the places they only touched alone. 

He pulled just far enough away to watch her eyes as he masterfully slipped his hands free of her scarf again, and moved his fingertips slowly down her chest.

“I…” she stammered.

“Shhh, no worries, my darling. My beloved, you are right where you should be.”

He leaned in to delicately kiss her nose as he unfastened the top button of her dress. A heavy linen thing for the cool weather, the dress had snug copper buttons securing a thick placket all the way down the front. It was how she would step out of the garment to undress, by unbuttoning the front. As Dario was doing.

Khalila heard her own gasp as Dario kissed her forehead and opened another button. He leaned in and nuzzled her still-covered neck as he unfastened three more in quick succession.

Khalila felt a soft shiver through her, and tilted her head to the side. She could see Vittorio only out of the corner of her eye. He chastely kneeled behind her, supporting her hands comfortably, so that he didn’t even brush the back of her body as he found more tension to release in her palms.

“Nothing for you to do, beloved, but just be your beautiful self,” Dario whispered.

She moaned as Dario dropped to the floor for an instant, feeling her single undergarment drop down her legs with him. When he arose again, he flicked both wrists, and her dress was open wide. 

Khalila felt the moan rasp her throat once, then again, as Dario ran his hands over her bare chest, around her waist, down her hips and across the front of her thighs.

She let out another long humming groan of pleasure as he pressed himself into her, and leaned his head over her shoulder. 

Khalila could tell somehow that he was communicating something silently to Vittorio behind her. 

Then she felt Dario’s fingers reach between his thighs and part her lips.

She shuddered. Then he spoke again.

“That’s it, just relax, querida. Nothing for you to do but feel pleasure.”

If Khalila relaxed any further, she wouldn’t be able to stand, and she very desperately did not want to shift positions. She felt the gravity of the elder Santi’s presence sitting behind her - massaging her palms chastely, carefully avoiding pushing up on her still-fastened cuffs. Then there was the warmth and weight of her dress now hanging strangely down her back, encouraging her shoulders down away from her ears. 

It all contrasted sharply with a cool bare skin across the whole front of her body, with chilly accents of her unfastened copper buttons now catching at her hip and flank… a tingling nakedness, except where Dario’s mouth covered a nipple and his hand pressed between her legs. 

Vittorio’s thumbs now drew circles on her wrists that matched the thrusts of Dario’s fingers driving into her. 

Khalila let go. She let go of control, of composure, of the need to speak or stay silent. She let her ragged breath escape in gasps and moans, and she took hold of Vittorio’s hands to lean on him, so she could better curl her pelvis to deepen Dario’s reach.

Dario smiled wickedly, pulled his hand out and drew his tongue down his fingers as he stared at her. Then he leaned over to flit his eyes at Vittorio. 

“Stay right there, love, you are perfection,” Dario said.

Khalila felt Vittorio shifting behind her to stand, as Dario took her dress and pulled it together across her chest. 

She couldn't tell whether it was her idea or Vittorio's, but their bodies now pressed together tightly. Then her own arms were wrapped around her, across her hastily folded together dress, and he held her tightly in his embrace.

“Vittorio,” Khalila trembled as she leaned into him.

“All is well, Khalila,” he assured her. “You can simply breathe and receive. It’s alright.”

Khalila felt herself take a deep, exhilarating breath, punctuated at the end by Dario's hand on her cheek. It was then she realized, he left her dress out of his way from the waist down.

And now he leaned into her, unfastening his trousers.

“Yes,” she slowly moaned. Dario grinned.

She immediately climbed both of her legs up his and pulled him in tight… realizing as she did so, that more of her weight shifted onto Vittorio. Khalila let her still snug headscarf rest against Vittorio’s warm chest, as she felt Dario rigid warmth slide inside of her.

_ This isn’t modesty, _ she thought. _ A man I hardly know, who should be family, who should be servant. _Vittorio held her in place while Dario began a rhythm he knew she loved… long, achingly slow strokes.

Pressed between the two men, something in Khalila’s heart flew wide and open, dissolving into every beautiful thing around her, every tree outside, every glance and smile of Dario’s. And then it all circled back around to the pressure between them, and the delicious new constriction beginning to swell down her center.

“Peace, beloved,” Dario said with a grin. “Comfort and peace swells inside you.”

Khalila’s laugh was part gasp. “Oh, is that what’s inside me? Your vanity is...”

“Oh, it’s what?” Dario said with a whispered excitement. He came to the end of an exquisitely unhurried stroke and took hold of her hips to push further in. “Tell me, flower, tell me all about my vanity.”

Khalila groaned, the last of her doubts melting on Dario’s cock.

“You’re an absurd man,” she panted. “Your vanity is…” 

She threw her head back, collapsing more into Vittorio’s firm embrace of half of her body while Dario ministered to her below her waist. She lost her words again, as Dario kept his patience and his achingly slow rhythm, while Khalila wrapped her legs around him tight as she could and wriggled ecstatically on his cock. 

To his credit, Vittorio was never swayed an inch by her motion, but held up her torso firmly and gently.

Her wave of pleasure finally swelled to its height and crested, and she let herself lose track of her orientation in space as the two men held her. As her climax finished, she was dimly aware of Dario shifting into an ecstatic pumping rhythm. Vittorio smoothly let her slip a hand out to caress Dario’s hair as he panted into her scarf.

Khalila hung there suspended for a moment, still savoring the warmth on either side of her.

Then Dario finished, and slipped himself out, and she felt some piece of fabric between her legs. He straightened her clothes for her, and he prepared to gather her in his arms, she saw him wink at Vittorio behind her.

Khalila felt abuzz, and strangely sturdier, as Dario took her into his arms alone, and slowly lowered her back down to the couch.

“Right. I believe our time is nearly up.”

When Dario looked to Vittorio standing next to them, Khalila did too. Vittorio nodded, then slipped around them both toward… something on the other side of the room. Khalila couldn’t process what was happening. She didn’t want to think yet again.

Dario stroked her still-covered head in the delicate way he’d found to do it without disturbing her scarf. Then he gazed into her eyes for a few minutes.

Vittorio returned with the bag Dario had dropped. As Dario thanked him for the bag, and dipped into it, Vittorio spoke to her softly.

“You have about ten minutes before we should embark for the dinner meeting.”

“Yes of course,” she said, a fraction of her command voice trickling back into her words. “Thank you.”

“I’ll wait outside, Archivist.”

“Captain, thank you.” Khalila smiled at him.

He returned a bright smile back to her.

“My pleasure to serve, Archivist,” Vittorio said. “And you… are always welcome.”

As Captain Santi left, Dario finished changing his pants stained with both of their fluids.

“Oh.” Khalila let out half a giggle, then stopped. “Oh, my own-”

She looked down at her dress, and was shocked to see nothing worrisome at first glance.

“I took great pains, beloved,” Dario said, spreading her dress to look again. “Yes, there we are. Looking fine and elegant, as always.”

“You’re very good to me,” she said.

“It’s my job,” he smiled. “I'll bid my farewell, my dearest. I’ll see you in… five days, I believe.”

“Yes. I adore you.”

“Of course you do.” Dario grinned and took her hand so she could escort him to the door.

Khalila savored the last few moments of Dario’s touch. And she found herself looking forward to the reminder Vittorio would serve for her.


End file.
